Category Archives: autumn

Conjoined Twins: Dreary and Beauty

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, autumn

 

 

Gray Gables B & B in Mahone Bay area

 

After we arrived in Chester Nova Scotia it rained a lot. I realize people here say they need the rain. Visitors like us disagree, but we concede that the locals have more at stake than we do. Our delightful host Jackie, at Gray Gables B & B ,  in Mahone Bay,  Jackie, said that every day she hears about another well running dry. When Christiane and I hear that, we stop complaining.

 

Ingramport River

One thing is clear peak autumn colours have arrived in Nova Scotia. The colours are sensational. And dreary days seem to bring them out with exuberance. The irrational exuberance of conjoined twins: dreary and beauty!  And I love it.

The lovely Ingramport River strutted her stuff and we paid heed. I could not stop to grab a few images.  Not great photos alas, but great colours.

We don’t get such colours back in Manitoba. Compared to this our colours seem grim.

Ingramport River

I like more than just maple leaves. I like the red oaks leaves too. I particularly like them when the colour green seeps out of the oak leaves leaving reds, oranges and spectacular colours behind. The absolute glory of autumn.

 

Red Oak

In the evening, we enjoyed visiting our new friends at the Gray Gables  B & B for some drinks and lively conversation. They recommended a good place for pizza and said we could order in. That is what we did. That is what we love about such accommodations. It is hard to get anything similar in a hotel or inn. At ordinary inns or hotels there is little opportunity for convivial conversations. And this was one of best B & B’s we ever visited.

After every one left and I stayed a while with my computer at the breakfast table, the power went out. I was stuck. Thank goodness I carried a flashlight in my phone. Some modern technology is pretty darn good.

How is it possible to have so much dreary and so much beauty together? Dreary and Beauty: Conjoined  twins

 

Autumn Delight

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, autumn, Nature, photography

 

Very few people understood the eastern forests better, or at least could explain them more coherently, than Henry David Thoreau. This is what he said:

“If a man walks in the woods for the love of them for half each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed as an industrious and enterprising citizen.”

 

 

Hermann Hesse also got it right: “Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever learns to speak to them can learn the truth.  They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.”

 

I love reflections of the autumn leaves in lakes or streams. I can never get enough of them.

 

The autumn colours were clearly the best that we had seen yet on this trip. They were sensational. As we strolled along the Mersey River the colours reflected brilliantly in the water of the river.

The water in many places seemed brown. This was not from dirt or pollution. It is stained brown as it seeps through the surrounding bogs and gets coloured brown. The locals call it Mersey tea.

 

Tannins stain the water brown saponins are a kind of natural soap. When they fall over rapids they form stable foam.

The river contains a lot of slate which is a smooth gray metamorphic rock that forms natural dams over the river. Over time the slate has been polished smooth. The slate was formed about 500 million years ago when silt was deposited in fine layers on what was then the continental shelf of northern Africa!  Think about that. The slate moved with the continent from Africa to North America.

380 million years ago the continents of Africa and North America moved together closing the Atlantic Ocean in the process. This collision of continents baked and bent the layers of silt and shale into the metamorphic rock that we call shale.

 

Later the continents shifted again and the continents separated once more leaving some African slate as part of what we now call Nova Scotia.

Autumn in Nova Scotia is grand. Life in Nova Scotia is grand.

Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site.

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, autumn, Nature, photography

 

This morning we said good-bye to our new friends from Quebec  and set out for Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site.This is the only National Park in Canada that is also a Historic Site.

 

Christiane and I had a wonderful walk through a trail near the park entrance along the Mersey River.  The colours were spectacular and the entire walk was a delight.

 

The eastern forests are glorious for many reasons. One of the reasons—a big one—is the astonishing variety of trees. You can really see this elemental fact when you look at all the incredible colors of the trees in a place like Kejimkujik.

 

The autumn colours were clearly the best that we had seen yet on this trip. They were sensational. As we strolled along the Mersey River the colours reflected brilliantly in the water of the river.

 

 

Kejimkujik is located in Southwest Nova Scotia together with an adjunct consisting of a parcel of land on the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Christiane made good friends with a woman from Maryland. Both of the women  had a wonderful chat as their overly eager amateur photographer spouses went off in search of the elusive perfect autumn images. At least they were elusive for Christiane’s spouse.

 

Some of the canoe routes here are thousands of years old. They are part of Mi’kmaw culture.

It includes petrogrly sites, habitation sites, fishing and hunting sites, travel routes and burial grounds, all of which attest to Mi’kmaq occupancy for thousands of years.

It has also been designated as a dark-sky preserve by the Royal Astronomical Society with some of the brightest night skies in southern Canada.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best: “The wonder is that we can see trees and not wonder more.”

The Road to Fort Frances

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn

 

 

 

The trip to Fort Frances from Thunder Bay was a delight. I made many stops along the way to photograph the autumn leaves. Some people say there is nothing to see here other than rocks and trees. Well, if that is true, I love the rocks and trees particularly in the fall. The colours were sensational. They should declare a national holiday for us to see them. The journey through Quetico Park was inspiring. I also listened to a brilliant podcast by the historian Timothy Snyder. I even got to see a few more of the little islands I like so much.  Life was good.

Through Quetico Region and Rainy River

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact

 

Larch or Tamarack

The road from Thunder Bay to Fort Frances was an absolute delight.  There was very little traffic and I could stop to photograph the countryside as often as I wanted. this is a photograph of one of the grandest sights of autumn–the larch or tamarack. This is a coniferous tree that does not stay green. I think it is the only tree in Canada that does that. There were plenty of them in the Thunder bay area.

“There used to be 7 Anishinaabe First Nation communities along the Rainy River. In the early 1900s, after the Metis resistance, the province of Ontario forced the amalgamation of some of them to form Manitou Rapids First Nation. According to the Ryan McMahon of the Couchiching First Nation in north-west Ontario, this was an illegal amalgamation, by the province of Ontario because they wanted the land for settlers and then they gave them our land for free.”

 

Here was an ad produced by the Canadian government:

 

By order of Parliament: Land Grants are to be given for the purpose of settlement in Somerville Township.

 

The governments (federal and provincial) spread such posters far and wide in many countries. They offered irrigated land with lots of nearby lumber with lots of potential farm land with access to markets and roads.  They did not tell too many people about the winters in Canada. But people did get land with documents on plans that showed road allowances. The Ontario government in 1853 invited “Capitalists, Tenant farmers, agricultural labourers, mechanics, Day labourers, and all parties desirous of improving their circumstances to immigrate to a new country.” Earlier people had been given parcels of land in the middle of nowhere. They had road allowances but often no road. So, the governments started a road system to attract settlers and facilitate enterprise.

 

Of course, the governments that did this never asked their partners—those nations that entered into treaties with the federal government—what they thought about what they were doing. The first nations never thought they were ceding the land to the European newcomers. They thought they made deals to share the land with the newcomers. But that is not how it worked out. The newcomers took over—everything.

Pam Palmater, an indigenous Canadian lawyer and professor of law,  had an entirely different view of these enterprises. As she said,

To me these roads, railways, they’re like an infection. Not just metaphorically, but actually. It was  a way of invading our territories, without legal authority, without consent. And what are roads used for now? They literally bleed our territories dry of people, of resources, of everything that matters and they pose a hazard.

 

This was how colonialism started in Canada, with a fundamental disagreement about what the parties had agreed to.

Grueling Inquest

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Indigenous Issues, photography

 

Sometimes truth does not come in clear images.  The impressionist painters of the late 19th century realized that, and I found their images captivating.  Some of you may have noticed that some of my photos are not clear either. That is not an accident.  I have been using a technique called “the Orton effect” after the man who invented it. The technique involves combining 2 identical images into one. The first one is clear, but over exposed. So it is very light. Then I take a second image of the same subject and blur it deliberately. When combined the images sometimes are stunning. Sometimes you have no idea what the result will be when the images are combined. Sometimes the results are duds. When combined however, sometimes the images seem magical what you see the two images coming together in the computer.

 

A few years ago I was at photographic workshop with a photographer by the name of Andre Gallant who produced a book called Dream Scapes. He is a master of the technique.  I am a poor elementary student.  His images were deeply compelling to me, but he admitted, as must I, that the technique is not for everyone. After all, why would one deliberately blur a sharp image? That is a good question? Why did the impressionists do that?

 

Julian Falconer, in the film Spirit to Soar, together with the Grand Chief Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Alvin Fiddler fought for an inquest into the deaths of the 7 young indigenous people in Thunder Bay for years.  Finally, one was announced in 2008, but only for one of the 7 students.  The inquest was for Reggie Bushie and it was finally called in 2015. According to CBC reporter Jodi Porter,

“there was a roomful of lawyers there and their only job was to protect and cover-up and they were the ones who got to call [witnesses]…There wasn’t healing in it. It was traumatizing. It was awful to sit there every day. And no one from Thunder Bay bothered to show up.”

 

While the Inquest was being held another indigenous body was pulled from the river. “The gruelling inquest”, according to Talaga, “lasted for 9 months and came up with 145 recommendations including building high schools for every community that needs one. And improving safety for Thunder Bay rivers.

I wonder if anyone cared about that. The film did not say. It left a lot of questions unanswered.

In the same way, combining images can leave a lot of questions unanswered. But aren’t questions more important than answers? I don’t want to give up on truth, but sometimes I want to experience it from a fresh perspective.

When the land is special, but death is normalized

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools

I love maple leaves just before they die. Maple Leafs of Toronto not so much.  Maple leaves,  attain a stunning beauty just before death consumes them. The tree doesn’t die; the leaves die and fall to the ground. On the ground we see their last grasp at beauty. I am always amazed by their shape and colours. Even from behind they look wonderful.

A number of deaths in and around Thunder Bay have brought back painful memories of Indian Residential Schools to the people of the region. This has sparked fear among many indigenous youth. Particularly, when it appears that the deaths have been normalized.  When nobody cares it’s time to be scared. And when there is nothing special about the deaths, you know it’s dangerous out there. It’s the same thing the indigenous women have felt in Canada for decades.

Yet at the same time, the land is incredibly  beautiful. Reminds me of what W.B. Yeats once referred to as “beauty like a bended bow.”  As Julian Falconer, a lawyer acting for indigenous people said in the film Spirit to Soar, as he was flying over the region I was travelling by in my car:

“We are flying where Jordan Wabasse was found. Nobody needs reminding of how tragic these losses, these deaths, are to indigenous communities. But I also think that you can’t talk about Thunder Bay without appreciating how special the land is. That creates the ultimate irony. Easily some of the most beautiful landmarks in the world are here with some of the ugliest dynamics in the form of racism. All of that is part of the story. And the whole story needs to be told.”

Wisdom from a lawyer. How rare. Go figure.

The land is special, the people are special, and things get complicated. We have to appreciate that. There are no simple answers here, because there are no simple truths. Truth is usually complex.

 

 

Fear and Trembling

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Colonialism, Exploitation, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties, Indigenous--Indian Act, Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools

 

I love autumn and in particular the maple leaves of autumn.  What is more beautiful?

The Canadian federal government in 1876 introduced the Indian Act. It has been amended a number of times since then, but is still on the books. That statute gave the federal government authority over indigenous people. Indigenous people were shocked by the introduction of that statute, since many of them had recently entered into treaties which they thought guaranteed them sovereignty over their own lands and peoples while agreeing to share (but not cede) the land with non-indigenous Canadians. That law actually gave the federal government the authority to completely control the lives of indigenous people in Canada. That statute gave the federal government the power to take away indigenous children from their homes and send them to church run government funded Indian Residential Schools. There were eventually more than 140 residential schools across Canada. 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to these schools often at considerable distance from their home communities and far away from their families. The last school closed in 1996. Again, this is not ancient history. This is yesterday. And the ill-effects of those schools live on in the lives of descendants of the survivors.

 

The Indian Act is a piece of legislation that amounts to the extreme use of colonial power and paved the way for exploitation of indigenous people. It is based on the false notion that whites were superior to indigenous people. I will have more to say about that legislation in future posts.

 

Children are still leaving their homes and families and communities just to get an education.  Now they do it by “choice.” Many go to places like Thunder Bay where they are the objects of powerful and deep racism. Of course, indigenous people are compelled to go there by economic circumstances. Many of these modern students report that they feel unsafe in places like Thunder Bay. One said, “I feel like I have to look over my shoulder every second, or I’m going to, you know, get hurt.” Many are scared because they know of others who have gone missing.

Of course, the 7 deaths of indigenous students in the Thunder Bay area brought painful recollections of Indian Residential Schools where often young children were sent to schools far away and never came home. Was this not comparable to that? Were we living through another heinous event like that?

Very Big lies: White Superiority and the Doctrine of Discovery

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Colonialism, Hate, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

When European settlers came to Canada, they brought with them a lot of lies. They packed lies you might say. One of the big ones was the doctrine of discovery.

 

As Tanya Talaga said on the CBC documentary Spirt to Soar,

“When the settlers came to our lands they brought with them many stories of falsehoods. The most harmful being the doctrine of discovery-–terra nullius. With lands belonging to no one, this justified the theft and discover of our homelands. But the land belonged to someone. We were here. We are still here.”

This reminded me of a recent television series I watched called The English. In that series  the villains included a group of Mennonites who had come to settle Kansa in 1800s. The English woman in the series asked the Mennonites why they were there? “Do you not realized people live here”, she asked. The Mennonites were shocked. How could their good intentions be questioned?  The replied, “God sent us.”  That was all they said. They never considered that they might be trespassing on land of others. Such an idea never entered their minds.

I actually think there was another doctrine–at least as harmful as the Doctrine of Discovery and closely related to it. That was the doctrine of white supremacy.  It held that whites were superior to all other races. All other races are inferior. This reminded me, obliquely, of my inferior tour. It was inferior not just in the sense of being puny, but also in the sense of any lingering sense of superiority I might have. I have been trying to oust this pernicious doctrine from my soul. It is not easy. The doctrine of white supremacy is entirely irrational, but that does not make it any less real. Anyone who benefits from doctrine must renounce it. Justice, fairness, and reason all demand it.

Both doctrines were lies—very big lies.

According to Jody Porter, CBC reporter in the film, Spirit to Soar, “there is a sense in this town [Thunder Bay] that you don’t have to account for these things.” That is what privilege is all about. That is what makes Thunder Bay the Hate capital of Canada. Those who have white supremacy deep in their souls often do not recognize that it is there. They are blind to it. They accept the benefits of privilege and look down on its victims, if they notice them at all. That is the spirit that does not soar. That is the spirit that leads to hate.